UFO Cupcakes
We celebrated my son’s second birthday yesterday with some “out of this world” cupcakes! Read more
Posts tagged ‘buttercream’
Aug 25
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Rainbow Cupcakes For Cancer Research
Last Friday, my daughter’s school was hosting an Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea fundraiser. Newsletters were sent out asking parents for donations to a cupcake stall that the students could buy from during recess to raise money for cancer research. Read more
Jul 21
Peanut Butter White Chocolate Cupcakes
With all the excitement I’ve had receiving entries for my Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge, I had forgotten that I wanted to post about the peanut butter cupcakes with white chocolate frosting that I had made last week! I got the inspiration for these cupcakes when I made these peanut butter cookies and added white chocolate chunks to the cookie dough. It was a really nice combination. I just had to make a cupcake out of it.
Apr 16
Mocha Cupcakes
I take my 4-year-old daughter to ballet classes on Tuesdays. She really enjoys it and has made a new friend in her class. It’s neat to see her perform some of the poses at home – one day she did a plie. Ballet term 2 is now starting after a 2-week long Easter holiday, and my daughter says she wants to continue with ballet.
Ballet class lasts only 30 minutes. Luckily, if I practically run, I can make it over to the nearby Westfield shopping center for a special treat for myself. I visit T2 Tea and sample all four of the teas they have on display that day and have a chat with the friendly ladies who work there. And then I do a fast-walk to get back to ballet to pick up my daughter.
As it turns out, my daughter also likes to sample the teas at T2 Tea, so before the holidays I started going to T2 before ballet class so she could try the teas too, and I sat in the lobby area of the ballet studio and read magazines while she was in her class. They only have a handful of magazines and always the same ones, but I did find an Australian Women’s Weekly magazine (from March 2009!) that I hadn’t seen before and flipped through the recipe section. I found some beautiful mocha cupcakes and read the recipe for them. I was immediately intrigued by it because it used real melted chocolate, almond meal and buttermilk.
Mar 3
Cupcakes & A Giveaway!
The giveaway is now over and any comments left after 7PM on March 7, 2010 as recorded on the comment will not be counted. The winner will be chosen tomorrow so check back then to see if you have won!
The Sweetest Kitchen hasn’t always been The Sweetest Kitchen. I started out blogging about cupcakes in late May of 2008 at Blogspot; my blog was then called The Cupcake Review. As I started to expand and blog about more than cupcakes I knew that I needed to switch to my own domain. After much thought, I finally decided on the name The Sweetest Kitchen in late February of 2009, and launched the new domain on March 3. It’s now been one year and my blogging experience has been such fun. The Sweetest Kitchen has became more popular than I ever expected it to – I’ve almost reached 500,000 page views!
My most famous post, with at least 30,000 page views so far, was the zombie Halloween cupcake I made for Iron Cupcake: Earth and Cupcake Hero in October 2009. However, my personal favorite of anything I have ever baked since beginning this blog is the pumpkin dulce de leche cupcake. Everyone who has made these has raved about them, and I’m so happy about that!
Today I’ve made some cupcakes in celebration of The Sweetest Kitchen’s 1-year anniversary. They are actually very similar to the pumpkin dulce de leche cupcakes, but instead of the pumpkin cake, I used a chocolate cake and sprinkled the frosting with sea salt.
Feb 25
Half-Birthday Cupcakes
Babies are cute. I oughta know, I’ve had three of them. My latest installment was a baby boy, six months ago. His name is Miles. He’s been the sweetest, cutest and most patient of my three. He smiles and giggles at anything and sleeps mostly through the night. You couldn’t ask for much more out of a baby other than that he sleeps through the night, trust me. Sleep-deprivation is not fun.
I have breastfed my babies exclusively for the first six months of their lives (and weaned at 18 months), and on their six-month birthdays I have given them their first tastes of solid foods. Yesterday, the 24th, was Miles’ six-month birthday and we had a great day.
Jan 6
Vanilla Raspberry White Chocolate Cupcakes
As we’re waiting for the final verdict on December’s Cupcake Hero challenge, I thought I’d post about these cupcakes that my daughter and I made shortly before we left the US. What makes these cupcakes extra special is that they were completely made up by my 4-year-old daughter.
One night as I was putting her to bed she told me she wanted to make her own cupcake. I asked her what kind of cupcake did she want to make. She said she wanted a vanilla cake, pink raspberry frosting, a cherry on top and a piece of white chocolate. I promised her I’d help her make them.
Ice Cream Sundae Cupcakes
A child’s birthday is a very special event, not only for the child but also for the parents. On that special day, however many years ago, you were blessed with the birth of your child and he or she is now another year older. Read more
Dulce De Leche Pumpkin Cupcakes
Unfortunately, dulce de leche isn’t available in most stores, but you can make it yourself at home quite easily with a can of sweetened condensed milk. Read more
Oct 7
Zombie Halloween Cupcakes
A couple of weeks ago I was leisurely browsing through Bake It Pretty, in particular the Halloween decorations. When I saw the zombie hand cupcake toppers, I knew I had to order them and make a batch of Halloween cupcakes. I have never made a Halloween cupcake before; the closest I’ve came were these pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, but they weren’t exactly scary!
But these are! This is what I created with Martha Stewart’s awesome Halloween cupcake liners, Bake It Pretty’s zombie hand toppers and a couple of Oreo cookies. Read more
May 22
Yellow Cupcakes With Chocolate Buttercream
I do not like to use shortening in my recipes, but I had some leftover from a pie crust I had made recently and didn’t want it to go to waste. I used it in a recipe from a KitchenAid stand mixer instruction manual, which was for a quick yellow cake.
I changed the recipe slightly to make cupcakes, instead of a layer cake. After tasting, I can say that I don’t like this cake! It could have been a mistake on my part, but the cupcakes were a bit on the dry side and I didn’t like the taste, either. I was disappointed, as the photo accompanying the recipe showed an extremely moist-looking yellow cake.
The chocolate buttercream is an all-time favorite of mine. That recipe can be found at Cupcakes Take The Cake. The frosting is coated in chocolate jimmies.
I’ll go ahead and post the recipe from the KitchenAid stand mixer instruction manual, but I don’t recommend trying it. If you’re after a moist and tender yellow cake, I would highly recommend the recipe that Bakerella posted here (I also have made her yellow cake before, here).
Quick Yellow Cake
Adapted from KitchenAid Stand Mixer instruction manual
Makes 18-20 cupcakes, or 2-layer 8- or 9-inch cakeIngredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup low-fat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggsMethod
Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners. Set aside.Combine dry ingredients in mixer bowl. Add shortening, milk and vanilla. Mix on low speed (or speed 2 of stand mixer) about 1 minute. Stop and scrape bowl. Add eggs. Continuing on low speed, or speed 2, mix about 30 seconds. Stop and scrape bowl. Turn to medium speed, or speed 6, and beat about 1 minute.
Scoop batter evenly into cupcake pans. Bake for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove and cool cupcakes completely on wire rack.
To bake 2-layer cake: Pour batter into two greased and floured 8- or 9-inch round baking pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack.
Frost as desired.
